#harknonnen

[blackhornedarts]

Dune Part 2 illustration.

Finally completed, took months to finish.

Creative liberties were taken.

Left, Lady Fenring, Feyd, two Harkonnen females and Baron far left, Worms center, Right Muad'Dib (Mouse), Paul, Jessica, Stilgar, and some Fremen.

[machinesonix]

Gang, I love the Harkonnens. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t endorse the Harknonnens, but there is something really refreshing about unsanitized villains. They aren’t inhuman slaves to Morgoth, they aren’t seeking restitution for some sort of childhood trauma with dalmatians, they are just shitty, weird people and we get to talk about how those people think without trying to excuse it. What really made me fall in love is the sheer alien weirdness of Geidi Prime in the 1984 movie, and if you haven’t seen that I really recommend you check that out. I feel like there should be some sort of trigger warning, but I don’t really know how I’d tag it so use your best discretion. Today I want to zoom in on a Harkonnen scene towards the end of the first book that I personally would like to see in some sort of extended cut. Let’s dig in.

I’m gonna start off by reminding everyone about the most famous scene in the franchise right at the beginning. You know it. The pain box. ‘I hold at your neck the gom jabbar, it’s poison kills only animals.’ Mohaim is testing Paul’s ability to delay gratification by threatening to stab him with a poison needle if he pulls out of the pain box. We've all seen the memes. Now let's talk about Feyd.

In the book, the whole un-drugged gladiator thing was Feyd's own doing. See, Feyd's family doesn't take him very seriously. He's been chosen as the na-Baron because he's got charisma and he'll look like the savior of Arakkis after Rabban and Vladimir, but he’s a big showboater that has all his fights rigged. By conspiring with Thufir to get a real Atredies soldier into the arena with him, he is forcing his family to realize how important he is to them. If something happens to him, everything goes up in smoke. But he's also given a chance to demonstrate that he is competent (even if he's cheating with a poisoned blade and some selective brainwashing of the undrugged slave.) The seduction with Lady Fenrig happens off screen, but I think in both Herbert and Villinueve's telling of the story, both of these show us this conflict Feyd has with the pressures of his family whether they're tests from the Baron or something he does to himself in response to those pressures. Finally, and most importantly to Feyd, when the Baron executes his slavemaster for slipping up with the gladiators, the next slavemaster is on Feyd's payroll.

Years down the line the Baron finds a poison needle hidden on one of his slave boys and immediately knows what's up. Feyd is trying to claim the Baron's seat and he's been planning on it ever since He calls Feyd in to make him watch as his entire staff and harem is executed on a whim. Here's where we get the absolute juicy thematic inversion. This shit makes me salivate in a way I might want to talk with a therapist about. The Baron says ‘Feyd, you know what this whole poison needle business tells me? You don't know where your priorities are. I am working on setting up the Harkonnens for generations to come and you're so laser focused on the inheritance you haven’t put any thought into what comes next. So stop trying to kill me and let's talk about your future.’

Feyd-Rautha is, by Bene Gesserit standards, an animal. In the Villinueve film we kinda skirt around the idea by hearing he's such a weirdo that the nerve induction gets him off, but I think this scene here really helps to illustrate why Paul might be the Kwizatz Haderach and Feyd has no shot. They've both got the genetics and the ability to win over a crowd. Nobody saw it coming, but the Kwizatz Haderach's ultimate purpose is to wage the war that will literally end all wars, you'd think Feyd-Murder-For-Fun-Rautha would be a shoe-in to traumatize humanity to violence once and for all. But the fact he'd be good at it is what makes him ineligible. The Kwizatz Haderach can't be someone who thinks in the short term. If Paul didn't have the big picture in mind, he would have fled from the violent future he saw himself being responsible for. If Feyd were in his shoes, there is no way he could stop from getting lost in the sauce. Feyd orchestrated his own gom jabbar in the attempt on his uncle's life, and he failed. Even if he saw the same path to save humanity, he'd have too many opportunities to indulge his glory seeking.

[hopestrope]

Poll al Gaib 7

[valleyoffilth]

two separate things i've started but i don't know if i should finish fsdfjlks

one:

'don't be afraid to show your teeth,' your father had said, his hand caressing your face before the departure back to your homeworld, 'don't be afraid to use them.'

so you weren't. no matter the rage that brought you here, no matter the way you wanted to tear and rip and eat everything that hurt you -- your family included, you swallowed it down. let it burn in the pit of your belly like wildfire.

you had all the poise and proper of your house, how you were raised to be. a weapon instead of a woman. strategic mind, knowing the ins and outs of a blade. you could handle yourself, you've faced death and came back screaming and smiling.

but you didn't know if you could survive feyd-rautha harkonnen.

he'd been told to keep you alive, your houses' deal on the line. that didn't meant he had to keep you pristine. or keep you at all, you found.

so busy with his pets, his training, his na-baron duties, he sparsely spares you a glance.

...

two:

all glitter and gold, silver in the moonlight. cutting like a blade into the room where your deft fingers roam, across the bedsheets, over your stomach. shadows are sharper though, they always are, how they mold your bedchambers into a dungeon of your own making every single night.

breathe in, bleed out.

that's the motto you've been taught and that's the one you're sticking with, probably until the day you die. that might not be far off, you think, closing the corner faster than you can think to fear it. but harkonnens do not fear. and so, you don't think you can. you don't think you will.

on your nightstand, your knife glitters in the twilight, whispering that it knows all of your secrets. all of the pretty things you trace over your skin, all of the disgusting thoughts that cling to your skull in the wake of it. the liquid heat that cascades over you, a molten cage that cools and hurts.

today, you'd had another suitor. from a noble family that you were well aware of, from watching in the shadows and watching in the court. you'd seen his intentions long before they'd the chance to glint in his dark eyes. but you hadn't been the only one. you scarcely remember the words he'd managed before dark blood spilt from him like wine, like ink.

your father, standing over him, not bothering to wipe the blade clean with his own tunic.

harknonnens did not fear. they do not abide weakness. and that young noble was weak, he'd told you, he was unworthy. maybe that was true. you hadn't really cared to find out one way or another, not-so-secretly grateful that you'd yet to be married off like a broodmare.

the daughter of feyd-rautha harkonnen is highly sought after, of course.

far be it for you to know your father's will, but you know yours. it lies quietly, heavily, behind pretty dresses, sharp blades, and a mouth that can hurt and hurt and hurt. that's how you've been raised, to be an animal. to be a goddess.

trapped here, in your pantheon of industrial waste.

but being caged isn't so bad. it keeps you near the parts of the fortress that warm you, though they are always fleeting. at the foot of a throne or with arena sand in your teeth, you catch it whenever you can manage. easy enough to do when you've always been a shadow, always at its side.

and he's always let you.

his perfect creature, his masterpiece that he showcases more often than your brothers. his only daughter, his pretty little bird with clipped wings.

...

[toad-ily]

Paul Attreidis absolutely deserves the hate and Frank Herbert would want you to hate him. He is the epitome of a white savior story as well as a Democrat. His family is the democrats and the harkonnens the Republicans and him being part harknonnen is just showing how these two parties are not different at all. He knew his actions would manipulate and steal away autonomy from the Fremen bit still continued and if you read the books you'd understand this. Frank Herbert was literally speaking on how fucking shitty the US government is with its reach towards oil as well as white people colonizing everything utilizing religion. Paul absolutely deserves more hate. Separate the actor from the character, the character is a trash person.

OVERHATED CHARACTERS POLL: Paul Atreides (Dune)

Feel free to explain your position in the comments or tags, but any harassment, over-the-top fighting, or personal attacks will result in you being blocked. Do not attack real people, be they fans or creators, over fictional characters.

[nitewrighter]

Hi, hello! I’ve only seen Dune adaptations and now planning to get into books and I find your write-ups so fascinating and informative💞 Anyway, could you talk a little about your thoughts on lady Jessica portrayal in 2021 movies? What exactly is the span of her abilities in the books? Is she an empath (she felt Paul’s pain and Leto dying)? Why couldn’t she show any emotion and tried to spell it away? Thanks in advance

I've seen some people complain that Lady Jessica wasn't doing enough but honestly in my experience reading the book, for the most part Jessica's whole thing for all the parts of the book that the movie covered, is fairly on-point. Like in the book there's this whole subplot where Leto intercepts this fake note from the Harkonnens meant to implicate Jessica but he loves her SOOOO much and trusts her 500% so he's like, "Okay, I can't say I know the note is fake now, I gotta use it as evidence, and I can also use this note to lure the Harkonnens into a trap," but he doesn't let Thufir, Gurney, and Duncan in on this, and they're all like, "Oh that fucking Witch! We're caught up in some traitorous Bene Gesserit shenanigans and we don't like that!!" and there's a whole scene where a drunken Duncan Idaho cusses her out and she's like "Oh my god, Duncan go to bed I can't deal with this right now." And she also uses the Voice on Thufir making him more suspicious of her, so... yes, kind of messy subplot that like... kind of gets bypassed in the movie because like, everything kind of goes out the window once Yueh deactivates the palace defenses.

I mean it's important later because Gurney's supposed to be suspicious of Jessica later in the book but mostly for this part of the book, Jessica's focus is on Paul and Jessica's kind of coming to grips with, "Ruh roh, now that we are on Dune and all the locals are shouting 'Mahdi! Mahdi!' I'm realizing I may have prematurely brought a space messiah into the world who will consume the universe with holy fire." And she's pregnant! She's got a lot on her plate! I personally thought the Thopter scene was great, and I loved the way the movie used Voice.

I feel like... the term "empath" kind of makes her Bene Gesserit training sound more 'magical' than it actually is. Like, yes, the Bene Gesserit are, in terms of fiction, a major inspiration for the Jedi, but they aren't necessarily fueled by space magic so much as selective breeding, insane training, and a shit-ton of drugs. I mean yes, their abilities are far beyond what normal humans can do, but also keep in mind that the first book of Dune is taking place in the year 10191 and we regularly make jokes on here about Mountain Dew Baja Blast being capable of killing a medieval serf--that was 800 years ago, this is 8 thousand years in the future. So think of like... human abilities being far beyond what we can imagine them today because they've been cultivated and refined over thousands of years--this is like, an arms race of developing human abilities because we got rid of all the damn computers in the Butlerian Jihad.

In that scene where Jessica's reciting the Litany Against Fear while Paul is undergoing the Gom Jabbar, I wouldn't say she's feeling Paul's pain so much as she knows literally exactly what he's going through because she went through it herself--and Bene Gesserit possess like... some crazy perfect memory abilities so that memory is very visceral to her. And as for the death of the Duke... I don't think it's about 'feeling' it so much as knowing the Harknonnens, knowing their own situation. As far as 'not showing emotion' goes, I honestly thought Rebecca Ferguson kind of hit it out of the park because the Bene Gesserit place a huge emphasis on full-body control-- and also Frank Herbert, as I have said multiple times before, is a fucking weirdo--so there is like, this intense value on stoicism, on being able to control one's reaction to a situation. Sure, she could scream and weep and rail while Paul was going through the Gom Jabbar, but what would that accomplish? At best, nothing, at worst, Paul might hear her, get distracted, pull his hand from the box and die.

And there wasn't really time to mourn the Duke either because she and Paul are on a planet that very much wants to kill them. Like, even in the little moment in the stilltent, they can't mourn the Duke because Paul's been exposed to more Spice Melange and is now having a prophetic-vision-induced breakdown over his 'TERRIBLE PURPOSE.' So like... so much is out of their control at that point, and for a Bene Gesserit, what little control you have in that situation, is controlling your own reaction. I mean... shell-shock is also a reaction, too. I thought Ferguson really pulled off that silent, stoic, distant-yet-brimming-with-emotions feel to Jessica excellently. Like, both that focus and that weariness.

But Jessica will get to do a lot more in Part 2, because in the book, that's when she trains the Fremen in the Weirding Way, becomes a Reverend Mother, and a major advisor to Paul, and they gotta track down Gurney. So that's gonna be fun!

[dankxsinatra]

The most fucked up Dune theory I've seen so far is the Harknonnen's human spider pet thing is what happened to Yueh's wife.

[discowitches]

UFO - Unidentified Film Object

When I went to see Dune last week with a friend, I didn’t really expect anything. I had not read the books nor seen the trailer. I knew it was a sci-fi movie, a genre I don’t really enjoy. I knew it was directed by Denis Villeneuve and that the casting was really good. I knew it was a big movie because everyone was talking about it. But this was about it. In my mind, Dune was supposed to be just another sci-fi blockbuster. But once I was in the movie theater, in front of the big silver screen, surrounded by darkness, light and sound, I changed my mind. What was this strange movie ? Was I seeing a blockbuster or an arthouse movie ?

Dune is the story of Paul Atreides, a young man whose family is sent to Arrakis, a planet whose people - the Fremen - are colonized and exploited by outsiders to harvest their precious Spice, a psychoactive substance supposed to be a source of energy. Dune does have all the ingredients of a sci-fi blockbuster with its spaceships and battle scenes and sand monsters. The themes themselves are Manichean, there are the good guys - the Atreides - and the bad guys - the Harknonnen. Paul is the archetype of the chosen one/white savior whose destiny is to lead humanity towards a better future. And of course - like any good sci-fi movie - all of this is a metaphor for the real world, a pretext to explore themes such as ecology, exploitation and equality. Another characteristic of sci-fi blockbusters is that they are made to be visual spectacles, they need to suck the audience into their world, make them forget the real one, and Villeneuve undoubtedly understood that. His adaptation is gigantic and all-encompassing, a true sensory experience that needs to be seen on the big screen. The care taken with the visuals, the sets and the costumes is such that we literally dive into the world of Dune. I did not see the two hours and a half go by. The attention to detail is present in every shot. The vastness of the visuals is matched by Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, sometimes dreamlike, sometimes thunderous, filled with drums, tribal chants and even intergalactic bagpipes. Everything is done to grab our attention and captivate us, the immersion is total.

However, Dune is not your typical blockbuster, it is actually a sort of an anti-Marvel movie. It is huge and loud and impressive and spectacular but it can also be slow and bleak. Like a painter, Villeneuve takes his time to lay the foundations of his dense and sprawling universe. He does not hesitate to take up half of the movie to introduce the viewer to each of the main places and characters and the nature of their relationships. He lets his images do as much of the narrative heavy-lifting as the dialogue. It sometimes feels like he aims to impress rather than entertain, creating a dark slow-paced mood piece, against the never-ending explosions that the sci-fi genre has been offering for so long. Denis Villeneuve does not try to bait the viewer with an accumulation of special effects or a funny tone. Entertainment does not neglect reflections on the world around us. Underneath this spectacular surface, Dune tells the story of a self-doubting young man carrying the burden of a poisoned destiny. In one scene, Paul's tormented silhouette cut against the cliffs of Caladan connects Dune to the great Shakespearean tragedies or Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea Fog. Villeneuve cultivates an aura of mystery and leaves many questions unanswered which can be off-putting for some people. His films are imposing and cold, but never lacking in theoretical material and striking images. Rare are the blockbusters who hold the same power - both visual and political - by introducing reflections on imperialism, colonialism, the exploitation of foreign resources and the ecological disasters caused by such actions.

Dune is entertaining and serious, epic and slow, oversized and intimate. It is as much a blockbuster as it an arthouse movie. Dune is an UFO - Unidentified Film Object - that will captivate sci-fi lovers, casual watchers and cinephiles alike.

Dune (2021) by Denis Villeneuve

[inn0cencestrained]

There was no surprise to the fresh bruises and lines of red given from splits on the skin. What he did, she didn't know, but she knew there would be an outlet for his rage- their had to be. He'd always have Giedi claws in him that would never fully let go, despite the slow softness that slithered out now. He was half Lankiveil and half Harkonnen...there was no changing that.

Same with his daughter. But she'd grown so attatched to that little girl and Vera...the changes in her- that beautiful beautiful smile. She was so smart, so aware, so graceful despite that Harknonnen DNA. Irulan couldn't imagine leaving her, nor her father.

But there wasn't a choice anymore. Not when Vera was involved.

Feyd's declaration causes her eyes to squeeze shut as her chest tightened with grief and sorrow. "You have to think of Vera," Irulan whispers, though she knows he's aware. "I will forever be yours...my heart will always be yours, but you can't....you can't do anything reckless. You can't...you have to be wise- for her. They'll hurt her Feyd. You know that."

The Princess swallows, burying her face further against him, trying to savor and remember every piece of him. "I'll leave her those books we've read- her favorites. I'll....I'll send her more if I think she'll like them. I'll write to her. I'll-" Her voice cracks, a tear slipping down her cheek. "....You just...please continue to keep her safe. You'll keep her away from Piter...take her....take her to Lankiveil. Please- don't let Giedi have her."

A quick breath is huffed out, gripping his hand even tighter. "And you....you're going to be okay. I promise...you're going to be alright. Maybe....maybe you'll even find someone.....you'll....you'll be okay Feyd.....I'm just....I'm so sorry..."

War songs sat on his lips, a precipice for dismantling, ever the ready to forgo logic for the pit in the center of him. Harkonnen-reaped wealth and wealth only offered so much, and so little. An army of Sardaukar to kneel at the altar of his rage-- whatever he'd leave of them.

Atomic retribution swam languidly in his skull before boyish skin shed away. Not before the bones in his hands said their peace: there was no ache, no pain. Only steel, only resolve.

How many prisoners had he gone through?

Irulan would never know, lest Piter found it within to needle out her revulsion, just a little more. Though even he relented-- momentarily-- swept away instead into the bowels of white lights and viper fangs. There, too, had the tarragon in his skull thought to go, to retrieve the finest poisons and gift them pretty to His Corruptness and that Old Bitch.

Silence sifted like sand in his throat, and yet he allowed her approach. The weight of her against bandages and bruises; his arm encircled her shoulders in something dressed nearly docile. Each inhalation rattled something in his chest, another song for another bodily betrayal.

Vera's rage, matching his, imprinted somewhere toxic, deep into the creases of his brain. Her guilt, her sorrow, the pieces that rendered her more human than Harkonnen animal-- Irulan's doing, notably. Only a locked door restrained her from commandeering a heighliner herself and assassinating an emperor.

Whatever future she could have, anything dredged up beneath a black sun, forced his hand.

Kanly could not sate unslaked vengeance.

"I won't let you go." A rasp, vocal chords taut, a split lip drawing a thin line of red. "I won't."

[blackhornedarts]

Harkonnen General Vayne

From a very vivid and cool Dune dream. A general gone rogue, killing various high ranking men, and an assassination attempt on The Baron.

Then fleeing Giedi Prime, being chased and hunted for months across the many planets by many has a bounty had been placed on him.

[blackhornedarts]

Dune Character Sketches WIP 5

Two Harkonnen, and A Fremen with his pet worm Gumala (Gum gum) from a dream. They looked pretty cool, so thought I would draw them, that and good practice on anatomy and body types.

Left Vayne, Center Milea, Right Towah